“American History TV” on C-SPAN 3 featured an episode inside the classroom of House Divided Project co-director Matthew Pinsker. C-SPAN cameras followed Pinsker as he led a discussion about Abraham Lincoln and the election of 1860 for a class at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. During the session, Pinsker premiered a documentary short film recently created for Journal Divided. “Honest Abe” is one of six videos created to support new interactive essays based on excerpts from the unedited manuscript of Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008). Other essays include “Writing Lincoln’s Lives,” “Railsplitter,” and “Make No Contracts.”

As the 150th anniversary of the 1860 election is next week, the House Divided project has just published seven interactive essays at Journal Divided that focus on different aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s campaign. These essays have been adapted with permission from the unedited manuscript of Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008). One can read about the origins of the “rail-splitter” image and Lincoln’s efforts to gain support from the Know Nothings. In addition, one will find an overview of the Republican National Convention as well as a detailed look at how Lincoln won the nomination. While Lincoln instructed his allies at the convention to “make no contracts that will bind me,” Burlingame discusses the contradictory claims and evidence about the deals made to secure Lincoln’s nomination. In the final essay Burlingame examines the political conditions that produced a Republican victory in November 1860. As you read the essays, be sure to click through the sidenotes on every page. These contain links to relevant records on House Divided, including those for documents, events, people, place, major topics, and sources. For example, the Gott resolution is mentioned on page 5 of the “Lincoln Know Nothing” essay. If you are unfamiliar with that topic, simply click on the “Events” sidenote to learn more. Each essay also has a video, which you can watch by clicking on the YouTube icon.

There is a video on the YouTube channel of the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) that offers a classic teaching moment. The video, entitled “Sesquicentennial Celebration,” urges those about to honor the 150th anniversary of the “War for Southern Independence” to remember what the SCV claims the war was really about. From their perspective, brave southerners fought to defend “their homes and families” against “an aggressive northern invasion.” The narrator proceeds to touch upon almost all of the elements of the “Lost Cause” or Neo-Confederate argument –the “insurmountable odds” of the fight, the battle over home and hearth (not slavery), the heroic leadership of figures such as Robert E. Lee, and the tyrannical tendencies of Lincoln and the northern government. My thanks to Matt Karlsen who first notified me about Kevin Levin’s post on this video at his well-regarded Civil War Memory blog.

This article from the Washington Post describes “Discovering the Civil War,” a new exhibit that will open at the National Archives in Washington D.C. on Friday. This exhibit, as reporter Michael E. Ruane explains, “seeks to explore more of the little-known aspects of the battle and glimpse some of the dimmer corners of the conflict that remade the country and that so many Americans think they know so well.” You can watch the exhibit teaser on YouTube and learn more about this exhibit here.

“John Brown, Slavery, and the Legacies of Revolutionary Violence in Our Own Time,” a conference held in October 2009 at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (Yale University), is now available online. Over twenty scholars participated in this event, which included four different sessions – “John Brown: A Problem in Biography,” “John Brown and the Arts,” “John Brown and the Legacies of Violence,” “John Brown and Abolitionism.” One can also watch the keynote address (W. Fitzhugh Brundage) and the concluding roundtable (David Blight, Russell Banks, and Tony Horwitz). More information about all of the conference participations is available here. Videos from several other events at the Gilder Lehrman Center are also online, including a discussion with historians David W. Blight Drew Gilpin Faust about Faust’s recent book, The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008).

“America on the Eve of the Civil War,” a conference held in April 2009 and sponsored by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, is now available online as a Webcast. Sixteen historians participated in this conference, which included four different sessions – “Taking Stock of the Nation in 1859”, “The Future of Virginia and the South”, “Making Sense of John Brown’s Raid”, and “Predictions for the Election of 1860.” (Each session can be viewed separately.) Interviews are also available – the historians answer a wide range of questions, such as “What do we need to better understand about this time period?” and “Are there still lessons for us today from 1859?” You need to have the Real Media player installed in order to watch these videos.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a contributing editor at the Atlantic, has an interesting essay on “the war between [battlefield] preservation and commerce.” This essay focuses on the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia and the controversy over Wal-Mart’s plan to build a store at a key location. In addition, check out the author’s video tour of this battlefield and an interview with historian Frank Smith on the significance of African American soldiers during the Civil War.

This year a freshman at Miami University in Ohio discovered a rare fingerprint from Abraham Lincoln just barely visible on one of his letters housed within the college’s archives. Lydia Smith, now a psychology major, made the discovery in November 2008 while examining a letter that Lincoln wrote on October 5, 1863. John Lupton, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project in Springfield, has verified the finding. Though there is some debate over how many known Lincoln fingerprints exist (see this post from Sam Wheeler), Lupton claims this is actually the second one in the Miami University collection and one of several that probably exist –most because of smudge marks in nineteenth-century ink but some, such as this one, imprinted on the rag paper. Read various news stories about this discovery or see a terrific YouTube video that details the whole episode.

With Lincoln Productions combines the acting talents of Michael Krebs and Debra Ann Miller to recreate moments in the life of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. The group has performed for the History Channel, news casts, schools, and special events; however, its most popular reenactment remains the “Lincoln Douglas Debates from 1858,” a series sponsored by C-Span. Located on the With Lincoln Productions’ page is a section highlighting the Galesburg Debate reenactment with several short clips from the three hour event. Although filmed in 1994, the video represents the most realistic interpretation of Lincoln as he would have appeared in 1858. Also, the debate itself offers thorough orations from both Lincoln and Douglas as this reenactment follows the three hour format established by the two politicians. As an added bonus, the site houses a link to the C-Span video library where you can watch a full version of the debate on flash (you may need to update your flash player), or you may simply purchase the DVD. This is another great site for those of us looking to learn more about the debates.